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Monday, 31 March 2014

Sorry for the delay in writing Argentina up - work has been crazy busy. Its pretty depressing looking back to the freedom of a few weeks ago...After Cafayate, our next destination was Purmamarca to see the salt flats, and Tilcara for Carnaval. The salt flats are pretty surreal, a vast pool of blinding whiteness amidst sandy plains and terracotta red mountains. My eyes hurt just looking at the photos again.

This looks like a Cutler and Gross advert!

Carnival!!!Carnival at Tilcara is quite unlike that of Brazil or anything at Notting Hill. There are processions with drums and trumpets but the dancing is folksy and the local men dress up in mirrored, jangling devil costumes. I had a wonderful few nights dancing with devils and drinking Salta beer.

We chose to stay in Tilcara so we didn't have to worry about late night transport. You have to book well in advance and I would strongly recommend our hotel, Antigua, which serve delicious breakfasts with homemade dulce de leche and jam.You can easily visit Humahuaca from there, another sleepy town with a rather beautiful cemetery.After that is was back to BA which will be written up soon. Watch this space...

Tuesday, 25 March 2014

Oh hai there gimpy photo of my grinning face. This is probably because I am so happy about there being plaster on the walls of my soon-to-be-a-home.

It's slowly starting to come together. New french doors and windows are in and the ceiling is being plastered as we speak. Next week there will be pictures of actual tiles in the bathroom and my Victorian style radiators in place. Watch this space or if you're yawning at the thought, I'm sure Flo will post something far more interesting again soon.

Monday, 17 March 2014

Welcome to Cafayate (south of Salta city) and home to Argentina's highest altitude wines...

Around me the land is arid but beautiful - lush vineyards are bordered by dry, Cacti-ridden plains all surrounded by red mountains. It may seem strange that wine and cacti grow together but water levels are artificially maintained here in order to produce great wine.

With so many vineyards to choose from and so little time, here is my quick guide to the area...The most scenic vineyard, so I'm told, is Bodega Colomé. I didn't have time to visit it since it is a three hour drive away from the town but if you have longer than I did, it should be worth the trip.The vineyards I did visit were Yacochuya, Domingo Molina, El Porvenir,

The best tasting experience is at Domingo Molina - a family vineyard - where you get to try 5 wines and some cheese from one of the three brother's cheese factory (which you can also visit). A lovely lady also shows you around and explains the whole manufacturing process. The tasting cost 40 pesos which is redeemable against anything you buy.

Cabernet leaf (left), Malbec leaf (right)

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Fincas Los Nubes has wine made by J.L. Mounier, a well respected winemaker in the region and offers a free tasting with some pretty good wines.

Fincas Los Nubes View

Porvenir - a military like complex that takes their tasting very seriously (75 pesos) - gives you a full explanation of their wines and is heavily featured on Gaucho's menu in London - a good accolade since Phil Croisby (their wine buyer) knows his stuff.

Other than some great tastings and exciting purchases, we had our best meal of our entire trip at Muse by Jonathan Cartwright in the Grace hotel. Admittedly it was slightly hit and miss but when it hit it was unbelievably good.We started with a complimentary amuse bouche of sword fish ceviche and guacamole which was deliciously fresh, sour and zingy.

Next we had the raw llama carpaccio - divinely tender and steak tartare. For the mains we shared a rather confused pork dish and the most delicious yet - llama steak.

As a palette cleanser we had a Torrontes sorbet that was perfectly balanced in terms of sweetness, sharpness and booziness. And finally, we had two somewhat forgettable desserts. This was all washed down by a very good, full bodied Porvenir Tannat (2012) and served with smiles and wonderfully friendly service. I am somewhat gutted that we only discovered it on our last day there.

Friday, 14 March 2014

The thing about renovating a house is that
whilst you’re doing it, there is no such thing as payday. Living ‘well’ to me means grasping every
opportunity to celebrate that life allows. Occasion is important to break up
routine, no matter what you’re in the middle of. So when I was celebrating on a
budget last weekend, I decided to make it special myself.

Granted, the fact that I had won a bottle
of champagne helped to bring down the cost of this dinner somewhat. However the
dinner itself would have been of a celebration on its own.

The menu was healthy and colourful – I
turned to my new favourite cuisine to cook at home – Japanese - and dug out the
Every Day Harumi recipe book that I’ve written about here. The boy and I have
been perfecting another Japanese recipe (my favourite at Asa Kusa – written
about here) over the last few weeks too.
It’s called Nasu Dengaku and is made from aubergine and a sweet miso
paste. This really was the star of the show and very simple to make, but we’ll
get to that a little later.

I paid more attention to my rice than I did last time and it worked a treat. Firstly try to go to a specialist Asian Supermarket - try The Japan Centre or the Thai supermarket in Camden. When you’re there explain that you’d like to buy rice for sushi and they’ll either sell you sushi rice or sticky Japanese rice. The trick that I’ve found for cooking it so that it stays together for sushi is not to rinse it and to add even more water than you usually would: 1 cup rice to three cups of water (I used three cups for two people). Heat the water and rice together in a pan until they come to a boil and then cover and simmer on a low heat for 20 minutes.

When you’re done, add ½ cup of rice wine vinegar, a teaspoon of sugar and one of salt per 3 cups of rice and stir. Make sure that you stir with a wooden spoon so as to not damage the rice. Leave to cool before using on your sushi and be sure to spread the rice out onto the Nori with a wooden panel so as not to damage it or to allow it to cluster.

I assembled the sushi much like
last time (see post here). Again, I picked up the fish from Waitrose fish counter
on the day and bought 200g of Tuna and 100g of salmon for two people – bear in
mind that once you’ve added sushi rice and the sides, you don’t need very much
fish at all per person. Tuna and cucumber go nicely together, especially if you
add a tiny slither of fresh ginger or a tiny bit of chilli sauce. The salmon
avocado classic is brilliant – I add a little mayo laced with chilli.

For the Nasu Dengaku, preparing your
aubergine right is key. The one at Asa Kusa is deep fried but this isn’t
necessary when cooking at home and it’s far healthier not to. Heat your oven to
gas mark 5 whilst you prepare the veg. First remove both ends of your
aubergines and half them lengthways, then score the flesh in a criss cross
formation. You’ll need half an aubergine
per person – trust me, this is moreish.

To cook, lightly oil greaseproof paper in a
roasting tray, lay your aubergines skin side up in the tray and cook for 10-15
minutes that side up before turning the flesh upwards and cooking for another
10. As you do this, prepare your miso glaze. First take the tablespoon of white
miso and dissolve it in the mirin and sake.

Finally add the sugar and ginger
and stir until you’re left with a shiny thick glaze. For the last few minutes
of cooking your aubergines, you can remove and coat the flesh in the glaze,
sprinkle sesame seeds on top again and replace in the oven until bubbling.
Serve piping hot.

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